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Well, I picked up the Garmin GPS60 tonight at LL Bean for $101 and after 2 hours looking at it and the manual, my head hurts! I think it will be easier this weekend when it's light outside instead of at the kitchen table. I loaded the mapsource software that came with it and managed to transfer a couple of waypoints to the GPSr but until I go outside and can see things I feel pretty lost .

That is how many of us have felt at the beginning - and sometimes with many caches behind us as well!! I got a new GPS a few months ago and I am still working out the details in how to use it most effectively. Don't give up!! Once you get going you will have lots of fun. If you can make it to an event, that will help greatly as you can talk with people and get some guidance in person. Feel free to keep using this site as a resource - there is lots of knowledge to be shared

Well, I picked up the Garmin GPS60 tonight at LL Bean for $101 and after 2 hours looking at it and the manual, my head hurts! I think it will be easier this weekend when it's light outside instead of at the kitchen table. I loaded the mapsource software that came with it and managed to transfer a couple of waypoints to the GPSr but until I go outside and can see things I feel pretty lost .

matt

it all comes in good time, the more caches you do, and the more you use your GPS the faster youll become an expert like everyone else

Well, I picked up the Garmin GPS60 tonight at LL Bean for $101 and after 2 hours looking at it and the manual, my head hurts! I think it will be easier this weekend when it's light outside instead of at the kitchen table. I loaded the mapsource software that came with it and managed to transfer a couple of waypoints to the GPSr but until I go outside and can see things I feel pretty lost .

matt

Sounds like you picked up a half-decent one at a great price . . . regardless of what type you have trying to learn how to use one at first can be challenging for many of us (especially electronic idiots like myself -- for example when I first started out I didn't set the geocache as a waymark and instead would try to "line" up the N and W coords and would go back and forth as I tried to get the numbers to match up on my GPSr -- in looking back the folks at the Pittsfield nursing home probably thought I was a deranged line dancer as I went forwards, backwards and side to side before finding the danged geocache), but I've found that just getting out helps to start learning how to use the GPSr . . . that and I've picked up tips from other geocachers along the way (i.e. for a long time I used the map to get me to the cache, before I realized it was usually easier to use the compass.)

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear."

Are there decent tutorials online somewhere that are GPSr specific? The manual is pretty slim for someone that is new to this. I am starting to understand the basics of cache finding from reading (reality WILL be different). For example, map page zoom, what is a good level and is over zoom bad? Also, the accuracy circle and 2D and 3D navigation.

I would suggest using it zoomed out a ways at first and then zooming in as you get closer. THe detail is better is when you get closer

I would strongly consider hooking up with someone that has experiance with the gps or one like it and spend some time with them. Folks in this web site are more then helpful when it comes to meeting and working out some of the bugs. I would suggest posting another thread asking for any one in the Brunswick area that will be caching this weekend mind having a tag along. THere is no better way to learn then to have hands on experiance.

I would suggest using it zoomed out a ways at first and then zooming in as you get closer. THe detail is better is when you get closer

I would strongly consider hooking up with someone that has experiance with the gps or one like it and spend some time with them. Folks in this web site are more then helpful when it comes to meeting and working out some of the bugs. I would suggest posting another thread asking for any one in the Brunswick area that will be caching this weekend mind having a tag along. THere is no better way to learn then to have hands on experiance.

Robt lives in the Brunswick area doesn't he . . . or am I thinking of someone else? And I concur with Dave . . . hooking up with another more experienced cacher might help a lot . . . especially if they happen to have experience with that type of GPSr.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the realization that there is something more important than fear."